A Life Unexpected

After being shamed for the last time by a 7yr-old about how much damage disposable plastic trash is doing to our environment (and to the baby seals), I’ve finally taken on the challenge of converting our kitchen into a mostly plastic-free zone.

The hardest part of that transition, so far, is turning out to be school lunches.

As my life and my family grew more complicated, my Christmas compulsion began to feel more and more like a chore. Only adding to the fever pitch of holiday obligations—company dinners, Christmas cocktail parties, and (these days) the boys’ own mounting social calendar. It took several years of whirlwind Decembers and early-January exhaustion to finally force me to revisit my real motivations, and whether the joy I’d always found, diving head-first into the holidays, was even really there anymore. For myself or my family.